Annals of our ancestors; one hundred and fifty years of history in the ...

HOME BUILDING IN MINNESOTA 229
a black loam, with a clay subsoil, and there were spots of
prairie covered with tall hazel brush and small jack oaks. The
sandy roads gave way to a good, solid, hard bed, and so we
watched the diversity of country and the quality of soil with
an idea as to its value as an agricultural country.
After a hard day's travel we found ourselves at the small
town of Fairhaven, where Emerson Vandervort was conducting
a revival meeting. Here we were welcomed by the good
Ohio people who were our church friends, among them the
Stanleys from Maine Prairie who came down to meet us and
take us back with them to look at the country. We left the
white pony to rest while we climbed up into Mr. Stanley's big
wagon and viewed the country from a high spring seat. This
eight-mile ride was something novel and interesting. Mr.
Stanley talked of "claims" and "homesteads," improved
farms, and other matters of interest to us. At last we saw the
land of our desire, and found it to be a little spot well protected
from the wind by grove and brush land. Two beautiful lakes
of clear water, Pearl Lake on the west and Carnelian Lake on
the east, spread out their pleasing prospect before us. We
heard of bass, pike, pickerel, catfish and redhorse that abounded
in Pearl Lake and furnished good eating for the homestead
people.
In the marshy land adjacent to the lakes, villages of musk-
rats built up their little houses of grass among the high rushes.
The Stanley boys were hunters and trappers and made money
every season from the furs they sold; besides, they furnished
wild meat in variety for their home table. Later, at the close
of the war, Mr. Stanley used to take wild meat by the carload
clear to Cincinnati, where bear, deer, prairie chickens, and
pheasants were arranged in a stall in the market-house in a
fine, attractive display. There Thomas Stanley stood in his
long fur coat, his white hair showing beneath his fur cap, and
long white whiskers giving him the look that always suggests
St. Nicholas; and as he usually went to Ohio about Christmas
time, it is no wonder the children called him Santa Claus. He
made this annual trip until laws were passed forbidding game